The Roots of Religion

Lesson 4: The Designer of the Universe

The Computer

Today, most people manage to do their most difficult work easily with the help of machines. One of the most amazing of these machines is the computer, about whose various capabilities most people have heard. For example, one variety of computers can, in a few minutes, accurately supply a doctor with medical records, which have been stored in it, and is capable of diagnosing illnesses. It investigates details of every condition reported in the past year or even ten years ago, and makes recommendations for the cure and therapy of disease.

This computer can, when necessary, recommend a suitable medicine to the hospital pharmacy, and inform the nurse, so that she can give the medicine to the patient. Some important factories also use computers for the control and adjustment of their machines.

Is it possible that an accident or chance brought the computer into existence, or is its astounding design rather a proof of the intelligence and genius of its maker?

Undoubtedly anyone faced with such a machine would agree that he is aware of the greatness of the intelligence and thinking of its maker.

The Automatic Kitchen

“Orbis” is the name of an apparatus, which can prepare excellent food for more than one thousand people in one hour.

In many present-day countries transport cafes and roadside restaurants make use of this apparatus; it is capable of doing the work of twenty trained cooks.

When you park your car in front of the restaurant, you press the button on a loudspeaker beside you, and immediately a voice asks you what you want. You give an order for various kinds of food, and exactly eight minutes later a special waiter brings your food.

How Does the Automatic Kitchen Work?

When the customer presses the button, a light switches on inside “Orbis”, and as the customer gives his order for food (e.g. a sandwich), someone sitting in front of the apparatus depresses special switches. The machine starts to work. In this way, first bread is cut by means of an automatic knife, and at the same moment a piece of meat is sent to the cooker, which grills it in exactly four minutes. Then it is transferred onto the bread and the other parts of the sandwich are also placed on the bread. At this point the warm sandwich is put into a plastic bag and is ready.

Is the automatic and well-designed “Orbis” without a maker or a designer, and did it come into existence as the result of an accident or chance? Or is it not rather the product of the ideas of a scientist who invented it using precise calculations?

Undoubtedly, this design and order, which you notice in the above examples, is the result of the thinking of its engineer and inventor. That is to say that if there had been no inventor, and if they had not been constructed on the basis of very exact calculations and measurements, these machines would never have come into existence.

The same argument demonstrates a general proof and its undoubted truth, that design and orderliness must take their origin in a source of knowledge and power. Chance cannot be the origin of marvels having design and orderliness, because, as to everything belongs a particular effect (e.g. cold water is an unlikely cause for being scalded), it is incorrect to suppose that design and reckoning should come from chance or mere accident.

It therefore follows that the wonderful design and orderliness which is observed in the brain, the nerves, the digestive system, the heart, the eyes, the ears and thousands of other examples constitutes complete evidence and a living proof. They prove that the world of creation has a wise and powerful designer and creator. Whatever attracts our attention among the secrets of the way creation is arranged, permits us to become more aware of the greatness of its creator. Can we say that the human brain and the wonders of the body are less significant than the computer?

Of course, you will acknowledge that all these things are proofs of the greatness and vastness of the knowledge and power of the Creator of the world - its designer. In addition to this, the understanding and intelligence, which is seen in man is clear evidence of the manifestation of something knowledgeable and intelligent which produced him. It is not possible for someone who has no understanding and intelligence to give to his constructions and creations such understanding and intelligence.

The Holy Qur’an points to this undoubted truth and shining reality in many verses, such as the following:

“God is He Who raised up the heavens without pillars you can see, He subjected the sun and the moon each one running to a term stated; He directs the affair; He distinguishes the signs; haply you will have faith in the encounter with your Lord.” (S.13; V. 2)

The existence of proper order with calculated design in creatures is evidence of the existence of their planers and the designers.

Questions

  1. Are computers in an orderly manner?

  2. Will computers work properly without receiving instructions?

  3. Did computers come into existence by themselves?

  4. Are the designers of computers intelligent or insane people?

  5. Can every human being make computers or only those who know a lot about them?

  6. Is the automatic kitchen a man-made device or grows like plants?

  7. Did this device exist two hundred years ago?

  8. Why did it not exist three hundred years ago?

  9. Is making a computer easier or to make a human heart?

  10. Is making an automatic computer easier or to make one of the major organs of human body?

  11. Why are not people able to make human hearts?

  12. What means are needed to make a computer?

  13. Can the computer materials become computers without intelligent design?

  14. Does designing computers require greater intelligence or building a human brain?

Whose existence do the design and order in nature prove?

Can you find an example of phenomena that would never follow designs and plans?